Help Is Not On The Way

In 1859, in San Francisco, Joshua Abraham Norton, declared himself “Emperor of the United States”, and eventually “Protector of Mexico”. $1.6 million in rare photographs disappear. An owner of one of the oldest photographic galleries in the country is accused of defrauding artists, collectors, and friends in the case. Emperor NortonPulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist says he […]

John R. Brinkley dreamed of being a doctor. Unfortunately he couldn’t achieve that goal. He could however say he was one, and became known for implanting goat gonads into patients. Brinkley was on the forefront of quack medicine, disinformation, and conspiracy theory radio.  Forrest Fenn, a wealthy art collector, decided to create a treasure hunt […]

In 2001, The Free State Project was founded with the intention of recruiting Libertarians to New Hampshire, in an attempt to create a sort of Libertarian utopia. Not too surprisingly, things didn’t exactly go as planned. Salomon August Andrée was a Swedish engineer, physicist, aeronaut, and polar explorer lead an attempt to reach the North […]

The most devastating wildfire in U.S. history was not in the western states, or even a recent event. Instead it was in Wisconsin, on October 8th, 1871. The fire burned around 1.5 million acres, and claimed more than 1,500 lives. In the 1990s, a new genre of music emerged, know as Norwegian black metal. Some […]

Jimmy Hoffa, former president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters – a powerful union with ties to organized crime, disappears in 1975. Hoffa is eventually declared dead in 1982, though his body has never been found despite years of investigations, rumors, and leads. Brothers, Homer and Langley Collyer, became infamous for their hoarding and bizarre […]

In 857 A.D., in the Rhine Valley, an outbreak of a disease causing hallucinations, gangrene, and death occurred. Because the symptoms included a severe burning sensation, and it was believed to be a punishment from God, it came to be known as Holy Fire. Though a doctor in 1670 figured out the cause, outbreaks would […]

In 1980, while Texaco was drilling in Lake Peigneur, a sinkhole opened up and drained the lake, swallowing the drilling platform, and several boats and barges in the process. The 10 foot deep lake was popular for fishing, and was the backdrop for a botanical garden. On November 20th, approximately 2.5 billion gallons of water […]

In 1985, Eastern Airlines Flight 980, crashed at 21,000 feet, on route to La Paz, Bolivia. Decades of searches turned up little, sparking a variety of conspiracy theories. Was it a disaster due to weather, a high altitude airport, a lack of experience, language barriers, and a lack of proper navigational equipment, or something more […]

After a long break due to Covid, travel, and technical difficulties, Mark and Kevin return with an episode that covers cults, and a couple of entertaining stories of nautical failures. The episode starts with a discussion of cults, since Kevin had spend the previous days listening to, reading about, and watching videos on cults. Unlike […]

Jean-Paul Marat was a French political theorist, physician and scientist, and, during the French Revolution, a journalist and politician. He was assassinated while taking a medicinal bath, as depicted in the painting The Death of Marat.

Pietro Querini was the captain of a merchant ship bound for Bruges, when forced to abandon ship during a storm in 1431. After drifting for weeks in winter weather, the survivors find themselves stranded on an island off of Norway in January of 1432.